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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698535">Transcendental Hazards</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSkullontheMantlepiece/pseuds/TheSkullontheMantlepiece'>TheSkullontheMantlepiece</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family Feels, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-The Final Problem, Reunions, Season/Series 04, Sherlock is a Mess, Things Are Going To Be Okay, a Hot Mess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:07:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,675</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698535</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSkullontheMantlepiece/pseuds/TheSkullontheMantlepiece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>On the first day John Watson stepped into Baker Street, Sherlock had made him send a text. </p><p>The day of John Watson’s return to Baker Street, John sent a text because he wanted to. </p><p>It was to Sherlock. </p><p>- </p><p>A fill-in moment for the time between the events at Sherrinford and the last scene with John, Sherlock and Rosie together in 221B.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sherlock Holmes/John Watson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Transcendental Hazards</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A lot changed in the weeks immediately after Sherrinford. There was a hazily formed but blazing joy to those days.</p><p>The survival of Eurus’ game was only the latest in the horrific ordeals that seemed to hang around Sherlock and John.</p><p>Suffering was a mutt kneading at their ankles - they’d each been dragging it along for the majority of their lives, and they’d martyred themselves by never shaking it off, instead turning their days into elongated attempts to stop everyone’s else’s agony - healing, solving, preventing, helping - while their own suffering chewed them down to the bones.</p><p>But after Sherrinford, they had resolved to wash their hands of pain.</p><p>They’d been different - but it was a bit good. Very good, in fact. Luminescent.</p><p>John was moving back to Baker Street.</p><p>If Sherlock had it his way he would have helped hands-on with the move, himself. The translation of John (singular - distinct) back into the fabric of 221B (plural- them) was one that made flutters of joy move about tenderly in the notch of Sherlock’s throat.</p><p>He could have walked the length of the District Line with John’s stuff: one jumper under his arm, those sturdy GP shoes looped by the laces around his neck, John’s favourite novel in his pocket, John’s unlicensed gun, safety on, between Sherlock’s teeth - and most precious of all, John’s daughter - sweet Rosie, perched against Sherlock’s side like his left hip was a bus seat reserved for those who went by <em>WATSON.</em></p><p>He could have skipped though London shouldering the entire weight of the years John spent living elsewhere, and he would've felt lighter than a feather, bringing it all home. Bringing him home.</p><p>But they had agreed (John considering, firm — Sherlock too delighted to be anything other than obedient) that Sherlock had better work on the flat, clear away the last of the debris and keep Mrs Hudson company so that she didn’t — after years of expecting both men through the door and then watching one come home without the other — work herself into a hysteria of nerves (it would end with her in tears, overwhelmed by the re-orientation of ‘her boys’ in her pride of place, and Sherlock himself all too tempted to dissolve into pleased simpering along with her - it just wouldn't do).</p><p>Also, Sherlock suspected, John did not like it when Sherlock was in his house in the suburbs. He never had. It made his expression cloudy and peculiar, almost nauseated.</p><p>Sherlock feared he butted up against the private emotions that John had about the less than satisfactory attempt at married life with Mary Morston, and found himself confused and winded by the obvious pain in John.</p><p>The unspeakable, mysterious pain of the sort that caused John to clench every muscle in his face in displeasure at the sight of Sherlock perched gingerly by the coat rack in the house Mary had lived in.</p><p>It truly unnerved Sherlock, since John was moving back to 221b he could not be that repulsed by him, and he might even dare to think that things had been good, fantastic even, between he and the doctor since their talk after Culverton’s morgue.</p><p>So, yes, Sherlock wanted to ask about it - about John’s face every time he had carefully lifted Rosie out of Sherlock’s patient arms and placed her in the taxi on their way back from the flat.</p><p>It was the same face when Sherlock asked him (timidly, so timidly), while the well-water that soaked John’s hair and his blanket glowed in the police headlights outside of Musgrave Hall and burned a frightful blue behind Sherlock’s irises —</p><p>— when he gazed and gazed and swallowed and said Move Back In With me Please John and DIDN'T say <em>I cannot bare to be alone now that I have seen what alone really is </em>and <em>the only good days of my life are the days I have been close to you —</em></p><p>But he knew he wouldn't ask yet. Wouldn't ask about how John really felt toward Mary and that house in the suburbs. About how the relieved exhale John let out when Sherlock pulled him out of the well was so alike the breath John let out every time he would follow Sherlock out of the door of his married home.</p><p>Delicate. Sherlock finally knew the meaning of the word in the realest sense. He tasted it in the air around him; so he wouldn't ask.</p><p>At least, not until he had re-familiarised himself with the intricacies of John’s inner life.</p><p>He hoped co-living would return to him some ability to read John’s mind. Not for his own satisfaction, but to take some of that weight. He had been getting it so wrong for so long, he felt.</p><p>With every fibre of his being, he wanted to get this right.</p><p>—</p><p>On the first day John Watson stepped into Baker Street, Sherlock had made him send a text.</p><p>The day of John Watson’s return to Baker Street, John sent a text because he wanted to.</p><p>It was to Sherlock.</p><p>
  <b>Will ring when we’re at Westminster. We Should b at the flat at tennish, ok for you? Sarnies downstairs?</b>
  <b></b>
</p><p>Sherlock absorbed this. John had rang him the night before too.</p><p>Speaking in quiet tones so as not to wake Rosie, they had chatted eagerly: Sherlock checking if Rosie had a third favourite flavour of yoghurt beside banana and strawberry and whether they should drop in on Angelo’s on the Wednesday or the Thursday and if John had seen that report about the fluorescent pet burglary in Richmond and thought of Bluebell: John chuckling in that staircase laugh of his (the noise of it climbing higher then higher) and asking if Sherlock had managed to find the box with his Union Jack cushion in and if he wanted John to bring any teabags and if the residue ash was bothering Sherlock’s chest (still no, fortunately).</p><p>After everything, after Sherrinford, there was this — the simple execution of their loyalty; the meticulous care for the details of the beginning of their new life together - the promise of ease.</p><p>And a casual implication of the rebirth of an intimacy from so long ago, from before they died a thousand times in so many ways before each others eyes.</p><p>What they had Before, thought lost forever. Maybe it was coming alive again.</p><p>He couldn’t quite wrangle his thumbs into a dignified response, and, wide-eyed at his own action, Sherlock typed: <b>:)</b><b></b><b></b>in reply,sent it, and then jerked upright against the couch in a shock of embarrassment.</p><p><b>Yes Indeed. SH</b> he then sent. Then watched the typing ellipsis twitch under John’s name, panicked, then sent -</p><p>
  <b>FYI the former message was for Rosamund. SH</b>
</p><p>and then <b>Testing hypothesis about rates of figurative emotive recognition in technology oriented Generation. SH</b></p><p>and then<b> Inform me any immediate responses from the baby, do. SH</b></p><p>The screen implied John was still typing. It has been approximately two minutes. Sherlock gently punched the side of the couch above his head, and pressed his forearm over his eyes in an attempt to shove himself headfirst back in time to the hour before he had reminded John that he had regressed into a giddy moron at the prospect of the move back into Baker Street.</p><p>The phone dinged and Sherlock groaned. He shoved his phone up under his forearm and read John’s reply with his eyes crossed and the screen squashing his nose.</p><p>
  <b>Rosie threw some of her carrot at the wall which means she’s almost as excited to see you as you are to see her</b>
  <b></b>
</p><p>Sherlock grinned, and pirouetted out of his body and floated up to the ceiling. He had to slap his hand on the side of the couch again, just to feel the sting in his palm and come back down. The phone was on his chest. He nudged it into his hand with his chin and wrote -</p><p>
  <b>Fascinating. SH</b>
  <b></b>
</p><p><b>Jokes aside, I reckon she does smile at the thought of you </b>John replied, quickly, as if he had been typing that one already.</p><p>Sherlock blinked. He imagined Rosie Watson’s smile, which was, by some shattering miracle upon the history of genetics and genesis itself, also her Father’s smile. And in the imagining, his own mouth lifted. When he looked back at his phone, John had sent another text. He had actually sent three within the same minute.</p><p>
  <b>I do too</b>
  <b></b>
</p><p>
  <b>Smiling right now</b>
  <b></b>
</p><p>
  <b>Bit mad, we are! Still want us back around?</b>
  <b></b>
</p><p>Happiness. Such happiness. Nearly floating again.</p><p>Note to self - Sherlock thought - there is a transcendental hazard to proximity to John Watson in a good mood.</p><p>He rolled onto his front, pyjama shirt rucking up against the leather of the seat, and, entirely by accident and without any awareness, kicked his legs cheerfully up and down a few times as he typed.</p><p>
  <b>Save time, always assume the answer to that is yes. See you very soon. SH</b>
  <b></b>
</p><p>and John replied: <b>:)</b><b></b></p><p>Ten minutes later, Mrs Hudson wandered up the stairs with the post and found Sherlock still lying on the sofa smiling at the wall (and the wall smiling back with a wobbly, toxic yellow face). His phone was under his temple like a pillow, and his legs were practising his ballet the way she knew they did when he was daydreaming. His toes were pointed and his left leg was floating above him, brushing the wall behind the sofa, imitating arabesque if he hadn't been horizontal at the time.</p><p>These days, she could see him as a little boy, more and more frequently. It was like a leak. She did hope he would be alright with his heart, so unpracticed at the stages of exposure he seemed determined to rush through right now. Her Sherlock was catching up.</p><p>Which is why she hated to ask.</p><p>‘Have you thought about cleaning up before John gets home, love?”</p><p>Sherlock swore and tipped himself sideways off the sofa in dismay, landing with a thud face first onto a pile of case files.</p><p>“I knew I forgot something!”</p>
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